Question about tween/teens constantly plugged in to their electronics

[mom2ponygirl]

Okay, this may actually be more of a vent, but there is a question as well!  My daughter is 12.5 and likes to text on her ipod touch and chat on facebook as much as the next tween/teen.  However, she enjoys this activity when she is home and her friends are elsewhere to keep in touch.  Lately she has attended sleepovers or gone over to a friend's house to hang out, and found that her friends still just text and/or log in facebook.  When she sees people in person, she would actually like to converse and do things.  

So I'm wondering - is this typical for the age or just this group of friends?  Do they grow out of it, hopefully soon?  Must she expect that getting together with friends now means watching everyone type on their phone or ipod?  

We've been thinking about having a group of girls over for a game day, pizza, and hang out but leave the electronics at home.  Would this mark my poor kid as strange, or could it go over alright?  We may need to limit get togethers to movies, or things on the move like hiking outside of cell range or something! :-)

Does it get better or worse as they get fully into their teens?

Thanks!

[Linda on the move]

Originally Posted by mom2ponygirl 
We've been thinking about having a group of girls over for a game day, pizza, and hang out but leave the electronics at home.  Would this mark my poor kid as strange, or could it go over alright?

Their parents most likely won't like it because many parents now feel safer when they are in electronic touch with their children.

I'm not sure how typical the problem is, but I don't think you can take a kids' cell phone away, and with it they can be texting.

[mom2ponygirl]

Well I wasn't actually thinking about physically taking anything away. LOL  I was thinking more of talking it up as an electronics free evening and hope the peer pressure would be directed toward that direction for a couple of hours anyway.  

Also, we know the kids parents, we've all been to each other's houses and out together quite a bit.  They all know that we have home phones, cell phones, and even if their kid's forgot their phones they would have no trouble finding a way to contact parents!  I was talking to the moms of two of these girls last night.  They were also lamenting the texting in lieu of talking phenomenon.  I'm worried about whether the kids would find it too foreign a concept - not the parents. :-)

[HappyMommaof3]

I think your game day technology free idea sounds good to me! 

Isn't interesting how our kid's generation and how Y Gen's are so reliant on texting and Facebook??  

Honestly, I can't stand when someone is texting someone else right when you are trying to have a conversation with them.  So rude.  Don't you think? 

Facebook isn't the "end all be all" that others make it out to be, either. 

My brother-in-law ran away to get married a few months ago.  He didn't invite anyone- his parents, our family, Aunts and Uncles- not a soul.  He didn't call any of us, before or after.  BUT, he DID take pictures of the event and posted it immediately to Facebook as "I'm married now!"  Dude is 42, not Y Gen, but so concerned with his Facebook image that it clouds his judgment.  You know??